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Why L.A. is coating its streets with material that hides planes from spy satellites

Climate change conjures up distant images of rising seas and cracking ice sheets, but in cities across the United States the effects of global warming are apparent as soon as you step outside.

It’s known as the “urban heat island effect,” and it refers to the pockets of intense heat captured by the concrete, asphalt, dark roofs and the dearth of foliage that define many American cityscapes.

Los Angeles — surrounded by desert and encased in thousands of miles of asphalt — is the poster child of the heat island effect, experts say, which explains why city officials are exploring innovative ways to combat record-breaking, rising temperatures. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti wants to reduce the city’s average temperature by 3 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 20 years, according to the Los Angeles Times.

One tactic for achieving that goal may involve coating city streets in a substance known as CoolSeal, a gray-colored coating designed to reflect solar rays. City officials said CoolSeal has already shown promising results. The coating was first tested in 2015 on a parking lot in the San Fernando Valley, one of the hottest parts of town, according to Greg Spotts, the assistant director of the Bureau of Street Services, which oversaw the testing. Summer temperatures in the area — which average in the upper 80s — have climbed above 100 degrees multiple times over the past year.

“We found that on average the area covered in CoolSeal is 10 degrees cooler than black asphalt on the same parking lot,” Spotts said. “We thought it was really interesting. It’s almost like treated asphalt warms at a lower rate.”

City officials claim Los Angeles is the first U.S. city to test cool pavement to fight urban heat.

The city of Los Angeles is coating streets in a special gray paint that can lower the temperature as much as 10 degrees. (City of Los Angeles)

The hope, they say, is that cooler streets will lead to cooler neighborhoods, less air conditioning use and fewer heat-related deaths. The metropolis is one of the only cities in the nation that experiences heat-related deaths in the winter, a phenomenon expected to worsen alongside temperatures, Spotts said. Complicating matters, experts say, is the fact that many Los Angelinos live in multifamily dwellings without air conditioning.

“Not everyone has the resources to use air conditioning, so there’s concern that some low-income families will suffer,” Alan Barreca, an environmental science professor at the University of California at Los Angeles, told Agence France-Presse. “That bothers me on a moral dimension. The pavement would provide benefits to everyone.

“It can protect people who have to be outdoors,” he added.

Officials believe treated streets are more comfortable for pets as well, as Fox affiliate KTTV found when they tested whether pets that avoided hot asphalt were more willing to walk on a treated roadway. (Spoiler alter: they were!)

To determine whether CoolSeal is cost-effective and how it influences drivers, Spotts said his agency has applied the product to designated streets in 14 of the city’s 15 council districts, where it will be monitored and studied through the fall.

“We think that more than 10 percent of the city is asphalt — that’s 69,000 city blocks,” Spotts said. “There’s been estimates that suggest covering a third in the city’s pavement with a cooler materials might be able to move the needle on the city’s temperature.

“We’re not ready to do that, but we do want to explore what it might take to go big and take this thing to scale,” he added.

The coating costs about $40,000 per mile and lasts seven years, officials said.

A parking covered in CoolSeal was on average 10 degrees cooler than conventional asphalt. (Photo courtesy of the City of Los Angeles)

Street Services is carrying out their pilot program with GuardTop, a California-based, asphalt coating manufacturer. The company began working with the defense industry to develop cool pavement for military spy planes, according to Jeff Luzar, GuardTop’s vice president of sales.

Luzar said the officials were interested in lowering the temperature of taxiways so that aircraft would be less easily seen by spy satellites using infrared cameras, which form images using thermal energy. Years later, the product being applied to Los Angeles streets is similar, but it has been refined over the years to make it even more solar reflective.

Since news about the pilot program broke, GuardTop has received inquiries from all over the world, including China, Israel, Australia and Saudi Arabia.

Spotts said the attention the pilot program has received shows Los Angeles is ahead of the curve when it comes to combating global warming. The city began using natural gas-fueled trash trucks and commuter buses ahead of other cities, he said.

Keeping Asphalt Cool

Pavements typically make up 30% to 45% of the land area in major cities and are known to contribute to the urban heat island (UHI) effect since they have high levels of thermal storage and a low reflection of solar radiation.

Conventional paving materials can reach peak summertime temperatures of 120°–150° F, transferring excess heat to the air above causing the areas to feel much hotter than normal.

Due to the large area covered by pavements in urban areas, they are an important element to consider in reducing the heat island effect.

Cool pavements can be created with existing paving technologies (such as asphalt and concrete) as well as with newer approaches such as the use of coatings or grass paving. To help address the growing demand for guidance on pavement choices, the Transportation Research Board has formed a subcommittee on Paving Materials and the Urban Climate. The subcommittee’s scope includes modeling, design practices, testing, standards development, and planning and policy considerations.

Finding pavements that are as affordable and as durable as asphalt, however, has proven difficult.

Don’t Paint it Black

Scientists say dark colors like asphalt have been known to absorb over 90% of the sun’s radiation, storing it there for hours, even overnight.

Los Angeles is currently testing a new pavement called CoolSeal, a light gray material that is designed to reduce pavement temperatures, which skyrocket during Southern California’s brutal summer heat waves.

Los Angeles Street Services is working with asphalt coating maker GuardTop LLC to test the cool pavement, which was installed two years ago at the Balboa Sports Complex parking lot.

Due to the pavement having a lighter color surface than traditional street coatings, the lot’s average summer temperature dropped by about 20° F after CoolSeal was applied, according to the company.

The Jordan Avenue project, which is in one of Los Angeles’ warmest neighborhoods, is the first application of the pavement on a public road in California.

It’s just one part of 14 pavement tests to be completed by the end of June in other council districts.

City officials said the coating could cost about $40,000 per mile and last up to seven years before reapplication is needed.

Cooler Ingredients

Other lighter alternatives like concrete can lower ambient temperatures in cities. The materials in concrete and the manufacturing involved, however, typically make it more expensive than asphalt — and paving an asphalt road is not cheap in the first place.

In 2014, the Florida Department of Transportation estimated that repaving just one mile of a four-lane urban roadway costs the state $2,413,168. The same year, the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department estimated that paving a mile of one-lane road in asphalt costs $700,000, while the same stretch paved in concrete would cost $1,000,000.

Rather than abandoning asphalt — which is an unlikely proposition in many places — researchers think cities can integrate paler crushed rocks into the asphalt pavement. With black tar as a binding agent, this won’t achieve the reflective nature of the CoolSeal.

Even if lighter pavements did become durable and affordable, some experts say it wouldn’t necessarily make a big difference in city temperatures. The amount of greenery and natural spaces in cities are also influential factors as they absorb less solar heat and shade pavements from the sun which has a cooling effect.

This is why cities are also looking in to more grass paving, which is essentially a structure which provides load bearing strength while protecting vegetation root systems from deadly compaction, while decreasing heat island effect. High void spaces within the entire cross-section also enable excellent root development and storage capacity for rainfall from storm events.

However, due to the cost of these alternatives, city planners may end up sticking with traditional asphalt for many years to come, even if it is hot to the touch. When some cities can’t afford to keep their streets paved as it is, it’s difficult to argue with anything as affordable and reliable as asphalt.

LOS ANGELES — It’s barely 10 a.m. on an August day in Hollywood, and the heat is already becoming oppressive. The temperature’s only in the mid-80s, but in the direct sun it feels hotter—and it’s getting worse by the minute. Part of the reason is the ground. The black asphalt of this side street off Sunset Boulevard is sucking up the sun and radiating its heat back out. An infrared thermometer shows the surface temperature to be 112 degrees. By mid-day, it’ll rise above 150.

That’s why a crew of workmen are out here, giant squeegees in hand, spreading a thin coat of liquid over the asphalt. It’s an oil-based sealant, the kind that prevents roads from cracking and potholes from forming. But unlike most street sealants, this one has been specially formulated with a light colored pigment, and within 20 minutes the crew has effectively turned the street from black to white. With the first coat barely dry, the surface temperature’s already dropped nearly 15 degrees.

This is what the city of Los Angeles is calling “cool pavement”—whitening blocks in each of LA’s 15 council districts to see how changing the color of streets can bring down the overall temperature. The street conversions started in May, and the results so far are promising, with officials recording average temperature drops of at least 10 degrees on the pavement itself.

The ambient effect is hard to really feel, and is probably small given the block-long installation is surrounded by other heat-sucking black streets. But city officials are hoping to make the case that this new approach to paving can have an impact. If they can be rolled out on a larger scale, cool pavements could play a key role in adapting the city to a warming climate.

Workers whitening a street in LA as part of the city’s “cool pavement” program to reduce the urban heat island effect. Image: Nate Berg

For all the existential threats L.A. faces from climate change—sea level rise, coastal erosion, increasing wildfires, decreasing water supplies—the one that will be most evident to the majority of residents is the heat.

“When we look at our vulnerabilities associated with climate change, we know that extreme heat is one of our top concerns,” says Lauren Faber, the city’s Chief Sustainability Officer. From public health risks to energy use spikes to sheer economic costs, hot days cause problems. And they’re on the rise. A 2015 study by UCLA researchers projects a dramatic increase in extreme heat in L.A. by mid-century. The annual number of days with highs above 95 degrees could more than double in the already-hot San Gabriel Valley, and more than triple in Downtown L.A. These figures are based on current greenhouse gas emissions projections, but even if those emissions are slashed, the city’s going to get hotter. And that means a rise in heat exhaustion, heat stroke, and even heat-related death.

Part of the cause is climatic and part is geographic, but the city itself is also to blame. The hardscape of buildings, freeways and streets absorb the heat that would reflect, or otherwise dissipate, in less built-up places. This is known as the urban heat island effect, and though it’s not unique to L.A., it’s especially pernicious here. A 2014 study from the Yale-NUIST Center on Atmospheric Environment found greater Los Angeles to be roughly six degrees warmer than its rural hinterlands, bumping up energy and air conditioner usage, which cause even more of the greenhouse gas emissions that have caused the climate to change in the first place. And as climatic warming progresses, L.A.’s extra six degrees will only make the associated problems worse.

Taking the temperature of a recently-whitened pavement in LA. Image: Nate Berg

To slow this feedback loop, L.A. is trying to dial down its urban heat island effect. That’s one of the key goals of the “Sustainable City pLAn,” a 2015 report from Faber’s office outlining dozens of targets the city should be working towards to improve its environmental sustainability and help it adapt to climate change. The plan specifically calls for the city to reduce its urban-rural temperature differential three degrees by 2035.

To get there, L.A. is pushing on multiple fronts, all of which are aimed at creating a reflective shield over the city. The first, most natural strategy is to increase the urban tree canopy. Through shade and evapotranspiration, trees are “natural air conditioners,” says Elizabeth Skrzat. She’s the policy director of City Plants, which works with the city’s Department of Water and Power to deliver and monitor the free shade trees it donates to residents as part of city cooling and energy saving efforts. They hold more than 100 tree adoption events a year, and gave away nearly 18,000 trees in 2016 alone. Though street trees can play a part in cooling the city, Skrzat says there’s much more potential in the front and back yards of L.A.’s low density residential areas. To encourage a bigger canopy in these privately owned swaths of the city, residents are eligible to receive up to seven trees, free of charge. “We’ll literally deliver them to their door,” she says.

The city also has some involuntary programs to try to bring temperatures down. In 2014, L.A. enacted an ordinance that requires most new and renovated buildings to install lighter colored roofs with high solar reflectance ratings. About 12,000 of these cool roofs have been installed so far. As new buildings rise and as older roofs require replacement, the city will gradually see all of its rooftops made from more reflective material.

But when it comes to surfaces that are particularly in need of intervention, it’s the city’s thousands of miles of blacktopped roads that are the next frontier.

“More than ten percent of the land area in L.A. is asphalt, whether it’s streets or parking lots,” says Greg Spotts, assistant director of the city’s Bureau of Street Services, which is leading the cool pavements project, a pilot with a $150,000 budget. “At scale, this could potentially move the needle on the heat island effect.”

But for a city with 28,000 lane miles of roads, scaling up isn’t trivial. Because the cool pavement sealant is so new, costs are hard to predict, but they would undoubtedly be higher than traditional street renovations. (For the pilot project, the Bureau of Street Services has budgeted $10,000 per installation. So far, all installations have come in under budget.) What’s more, not all of LA’s roads will necessarily benefit from a cool pavement approach, says David Fink, policy director of the nonprofit Climate Resolve. The urban heat island effect, he says, is not evenly distributed across the city. “People typically think of it as this dome of heat that sits over our cities, but when you get down into the cities, it’s more nuanced,” he says. “In L.A., there are hotspots around the city, parts that are dramatic urban heat islands, and parts of the city where the urban heat island is minimal.”

If the city is going to build more cool pavements, it will want to figure out the locations where they’ll do the most to reduce heat absorption. George Ban-Weiss, an engineering professor at the University of Southern California, has been leading various mapping efforts in L.A. to better understand how and where these types of efforts should be implemented. His team has a high-accuracy temperature monitor mounted to the roof of a car, and they’ve been driving around the city to try to understand how the heat island varies by neighborhood and land use.

“The goal is to say where are people most vulnerable to extreme heat, and in those regions where the people are most vulnerable, what are the mitigating strategies that should be most pursued that would help the most,” he says.

A former member of a Lawrence Berkeley Lab group focused specifically on the heat island effect, Ban-Weiss has modeled how large-scale rollouts of cool roofs and cool pavements could affect cities. He says that, in combination with efforts like tree canopy improvements, broad but targeted installations of cool surfaces can have a big impact. L.A. is the first city to take this approach to its streets, and if the cool pavement program is expanded along with other measures, it could do enough to reach the city’s target. “That three-degree goal is attainable,” he says.

For now, the city is moving ahead a few thousand square feet of white at a time. As the crews in Hollywood spread the new sealant across the asphalt of its newest pilot street, the area’s city council member, David Ryu, stopped by to see the transformation taking place. He believes the city should be doing all it can to improve its environmental sustainability, and he’s hopeful his colleagues on the council will be able to dedicate more funding to expand the cool pavements pilot project to a larger scale. “We want the Bureau of Street Services to go even farther,” he says.

Lauren says if L.A. is able to build on these first cool pavement projects, it can lead the state and the country in rethinking roads. “This has the ability to really go beyond our jurisdiction,” she says.

Image: Nate Berg

There’s still a lot to figure out before that can happen, from identifying proper locations to working with sealant manufacturers to improve what’s currently a niche product. While the city’s tests are being conducted in each of its 15 council districts, officials and environmental activists alike know that poorer neighborhoods with smaller tree canopies would benefit more from these types of interventions. Whether or not cool pavements spread across the neighborhoods most in need any time soon, they’re part of a new way of thinking in L.A. that argues the time for action is now.

“We definitely have the ability to change the urban temperature in the city,” Fink says. “And I think we will.”

But there is still a lot of uncertainty about how that may happen. Even if the city decides to budget more money to expand the cool pavements program, the cost of going from a few small streets to swaths of the city is unknown. And even if every homeowner adopted the seven free trees L.A. is offering, another drought could be right around the corner. Much can change—economically, politically, socially—between now and 2035. What’s certain is that as temperatures rise and extreme heat days add up, achieving that three degree drop will only become harder.

It looks like a light color paint being spread across the street. It’s not paint, though. It is a material known as cool-pavement produced by a Dana Point company from recyclable materials. It was applied to a stretch of road in Canoga Park starting at Jordan Avenue and Hart Street over the weekend for about a quarter mile.

Bob Koleas is TopGuard’s CEO. He says the coating his company says is “… basically an asphalt coating that’s specially designed to reflect the sunlight and the heat. In city’s like Los Angeles and other big urban environments with all the concrete roads we have we absorb all this heat.”

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It was hot all right here in the San Fernando on Jordan Avenue where the first coating went down over the weekend. 95 at one point!

Greg Spotts, an Assistant Director for LA Street Services says, “The world is getting hotter and the city is getting hotter as well. And, as the city gets hotter, we’re at increased risk for heat-related deaths.” Which is why the mayor and council have contributed $150,000 to put a stretch of cool coat in each of the city’s council districts. To test it and see if it makes a difference. Their hoping that it could become cost effective and prove practical, “keeping the city from warming even further,” says Spotts.

20-year-old Cassidy Morgan sees a value in it from a dog-walking perspective. She says, “It makes it a lot more convenient because I have to walk my dogs every day. They don’t even like crossing the street because it gets way to hot out here.”

So, we decided to put the experimental roadway coating to the test. The PUPPY test!

First, Morgan can’t even get the dogs to walk to the street. They know better. But, when it comes to the much lighter looking street surface… Lillian marches across Jordan on all fours as if its not hot even though, when checking the temperature it’s around 133 degrees on the cool pavement side. It’s 158 on the darker normal asphalt side. That doesn’t mean much, really. Or, maybe it does.

Then Cassidy helped us with the barefoot test. She slipped off her sandals jumping back when she felt how hot the normal asphalt side was. The other side she says wasn’t so bad.

She says, “The regular asphalt got hotter a lot faster. The newly painted one still got really hot and it wasn’t as hot and as fast as the regular asphalt.”

Climate models suggest that parts of Los Angeles could see roughly three times as many extreme heat days — defined as more than 95 degrees — by midcentury.

Lighter-colored pavements won’t counteract the trend by themselves, but experts say a mix of measures that includes reflective roofs and more tree canopy could make a dent.

Mayor Eric Garcetti has predicted that the city could reduce its so-called urban heat island effect — caused by dark surfaces, lack of vegetation and discharges from traffic and industry — by three degrees over the next 20 years.
Proponents of cool pavements say that aside from providing greater physical comfort, even a small drop in temperatures would reduce energy use and mitigate the health risks associated with extreme heat.

Still, some environmental experts warn that more research is needed. What if, for example, the greenhouse gas emissions involved in the manufacture and deployment of cool pavements only worsen matters?
It is certain that lighter surfaces lower temperatures, said George Ban-Weiss, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at U.S.C.

But he added, “The science is less settled on whether the benefits outweigh the penalties.”
For now, Los Angeles is testing how CoolSeal, made by Guard Top, based in Dana Point, performs over time on a handful of city streets.

In May, a work crew slathered it onto a street in the Canoga Park neighborhood. Weeks later, residents told The Los Angeles Daily News that they could already feel the difference.

CANOGA PARK >> When summer heat rippled through her asphalt neighborhood last year, Maria Jimenez and her three young children sweated in their bottom floor apartment with the AC off to save cash.

But during one of the worst heat waves ever to hit Southern California this week, the Canoga Park family say they felt much better thanks to the first “cool pavement” street in the state.

“It’s cooler,” said Jimenez, whose two daughters translated her Spanish comments outside their Jordon Villa apartment, where they’d set up a portable pool in temperatures that reached a high this week at 104 degrees. “The heat is not so bad.

“Last year, it was horrible.”

It was late last month that Los Angeles, led by Los Angeles City Councilman Bob Blumenfield of the ultra hot southwest San Fernando Valley, launched an experiment in what could become L.A. cool.

A light gray seal was splotched across a blistering half-block stretch of Jordan Avenue.

Since then, the battleship-gray reflective street surfaces have been added to short blocks in Arleta, Northridge and Hyde Park. Two more are slated to be laid down today in west Los Angeles, among 15 pilot projects across the city.

Their goal, city officials say, is to cut road temperatures, cool the insides of nearby buildings, lessen air pollution and reduce the threat of deaths linked to increasingly hotter heat waves.

If successful, the CoolSeal coating invented by GuardTop LLC could be added to thousands of miles of pending Los Angeles road upgrades.

In a city whose summer temperatures have risen an average 10 degrees in the past century because of miles of asphalt, parking lots, roofs and more, officials say the reflective roadways may help dial down an urban oven expected to be made hotter by climate change.

The gray streets could cost between $25,000 and $40,000 per mile and last five to seven years — a cost subject to change pending product and pavement innovation, city and GuardTop officials say.

After a week of roasting heat, three officials swooped down late this week to test the narrow street north of the Los Angeles River lined with two-story apartment buildings. By coincidence, each arrived separately after the sun peaked Thursday to gauge the effectiveness of the coating applied May 20.

Patrick Carrigan, an assistant engineer for General Services, pointed a handheld laser thermometer at the gray surface darkened by a month of road grime. It read 138 degrees. He then aimed it at the unpainted crossroad at Hart Street and Jordan Avenue.

“See look at that: 149 degrees, an 11-degree difference,” said Carrigan, on his second visit to Jordan Avenue, which he tested in addition to the three other reflective road sites. “The total average spread is about a 10-degree difference between black-to-gray.”

Blumenfield got similar results, as did a GuardTop executive who dropped by later with another handheld thermometer. Each recorded slightly higher temperatures toward the middle of the gray-painted street stained dark by tires and other road residue.

Two years ago, the councilman had passed a motion to test a new cool pavement that, with more trees and reflective rooftop solar panels, he thought could counter longer and extreme heat waves.

After rigorous testing of the CoolSeal coating for durability and wet skid potential, it was first applied at a Sepulveda Basin parking lot. Summer surface temperatures fell from 20 to 25 degrees.

“It’s great,” said Blumenfield, a former state assemblyman who arrived in a gray suit, blue shirt and fuschia tie. “It’s forward-thinking … it’s a vision for a cooler San Fernando Valley, Canoga Park and Los Angeles.

“It means health … life and death for people. It’s not an academic exercise. If we lowered the temperature in this community, it would mean cost savings for everyone inside and out.”

Among the rows of aging apartments with names like Jordan Villa, Jordan Casa and Jordan Terrace flanked by blooming magnolias or the occasional palm, residents said they already felt the cool.

“Now, it’s a few degrees cooler,” Jimenez said of her apartment. “We like it. If it wasn’t for this street, the heat wave would make my apartment hotter.”

“I feel a slight difference on the street and inside my apartment,” said Priscilla Corleto, 24, walking Gatsby, her small white Shih Tzu. “Without the AC, it seems cooler.

Los Angeles is testing a reflective street surface in an attempt to reduce the heat island effect caused by urban sprawl.

The CoolSeal street seal was spread onto a stretch of Jordan Avenue in Canoga Park over the weekend as temperatures climbed into the 90s. The seal is designed to reduce pavement temperatures, which skyrocket during Southern California’s brutal summer heat waves.

“The city’s going to get hotter because of climate change, particularly this neighborhood of the west San Fernando Valley,” Greg Spotts, assistant director of the Bureau of Street Services, told the Daily News. “The phenomenon called the heat island effect means the city is hotter than the surrounding countryside.

“We’re exploring ways to reduce the heat island effect by reducing the absorption of heat in the built environment.”

Street Services is working with asphalt coating maker GuardTop LLC to test the cool pavement, which was installed two years ago at the Balboa Sports Complex parking lot. The lot’s average summer temperature dropped by about 20 degrees after the CoolSeal was applied, according to the company.

The pavement has a lighter color surface than traditional street coatings.

The Jordan Avenue project in one of Los Angeles’ warmest neighborhoods is the first application of the pavement on a public road in California. It’s part of pavement tests to be completed by the end of June in 14 other council districts.

The coating could cost about $40,000 per mile and last seven years, city officials told the Daily News.

CANOGA PARK >> The new street seal gushed from a downpipe Saturday onto Jordan Avenue, then spread like paint to turn a half block of black into a sea of gray.

The morning temperature of the black asphalt in the middle of a nearby intersection read 93 degrees. The new light gray surface on Jordan Avenue read a cool 70 — on what would turn out to be the first heat wave of the year.

Los Angeles, which had pioneered the use of compressed natural gas trash trucks and other vehicles, is now at the forefront of developing a “cool pavement” to lower temperatures along its thousands of miles of baking asphalt streets.

For the first time in the Golden State, it is testing a reflective street surface officials say could cut public road temperatures, cool the insides of nearby buildings, lessen air pollution and reduce the threat of deaths linked to increasingly hotter heat waves.

Before afternoon temperatures could push 100, city street workers spread a thin gray coating of CoolSeal into the heart of one of its hottest neighborhoods.

“The city’s going to get hotter because of climate change, particularly this neighborhood of the west San Fernando Valley,” said Greg Spotts, assistant director of the Bureau of Street Services, who doubles as its acting chief sustainability officer. “The phenomenon called the heat island effect means the city is hotter than the surrounding countryside.

“We’re exploring ways to reduce the heat island effect by reducing the absorption of heat in the built environment.”

Street Services, working in conjunction with GuardTop LLC, an asphalt coating manufacturer based in Dana Point, had first tested the cool pavement seal in the Sepulveda Basin.

Asphalt at a parking lot at the Balboa Sports Complex once averaged 160 degrees in summer. After the seal was applied two years ago, company officials say, surface temperatures dropped to between 135 to 140 degrees.

Now, after rigorous testing for durability and wet skid potential, the CoolSeal coating was being slathered across a half block of Jordan Avenue just north of Hart Street near the headwaters of the Los Angeles River.

If the new seal could boost solar reflectivity —and dramatically cool a street lined with two-story apartments in the hottest region of the San Fernando Valley — it could do it anywhere, city officials said.

The experiment will soon be duplicated in 14 other council districts before the end of June. If successful, city officials hope to encourage manufacturers to help develop cool pavement that could be incorporated into a multimillion-dollar drive to fix a backlog of L.A.’s failing streets.

“I’m thrilled to be here. This is a great day for all of us. We look forward to seeing what the results will be,” said Kevin James, president of the Los Angeles Board of Public Works.

A CoolSeal coating could cost an estimated $40,000 per mile and last seven years, city officials said. But that’s subject to change pending pavement innovation.

“We’re going to try to make Los Angeles as cool as possible,” said Jeff Luzar, national sales director for GuardTop, a privately owned firm that has covered coated mostly playgrounds and parking lots. “We’re going to be the coolest island in Southern California.”

Average temperatures in Los Angeles have risen 5 degrees in the past 100 years on account of the heat island effect produced by miles of asphalt freeways, roads, parking lots, roofs and more, climatologists say. In summer, temperatures have risen an average 10 degrees.

In addition, extreme heat days near 100 degrees have risen from two a year in 1906 to 24, while their duration has increased from a few days in a row to heat waves of two weeks, said climatologist Bill Patzert of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

“I’m all for it,” Patzert said of the cooler pavement. “We could certainly stop the rise — and perhaps reverse it.”

Unfortunately, he added, the urban forest across Los Angeles is dying because of insufficient watering during the recent drought. “They can paint the streets gray,” he said, “but when all these trees die, you’ll see a dramatic increase in the heat island effect in the whole Basin.”

The residents of Canoga Park were astonished, even thrilled, to see black asphalt turn a light shade of gray within 30 minutes.

“I think it’s awesome,” said Partha Ghosh, 30, who lives at an apartment at Jordan Avenue and Hart Street, staring at the battleship-like surface. “Not too bright. Just perfect.

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Best Material: Graphenstone
Paint has come a long way. What used to be a toxic concoction is now eco-friendly with low-VOC that won’t harm lungs. The U.K.’s Graphenstone raised the bar even further this year with paint that can also help purify the air. The buzz around graphene has been escalating since the material was first isolated as a single atom in 2004, by scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselv at the University of Manchester. Today, its unparalleled characteristics are well documented – thinner than a single strand of human hair, 200 times stronger than steel but super flexible, more conducive than copper and proven to be a supremely efficient thermal conductor.

In 2013, chemical engineer and founder of Graphenstone Antonio León Jiménez began working the material in with his artisanal lime-based paints and coatings. The result was an innovative product that boasts multiple benefits for the industry. The collection now encompasses both interior and exterior applications that, besides purifying the air, can absorb CO2. It is also mould-, fungus- and bacteria-resistant.

Why we like it: Graphenstone has turned an everyday product into one that is healthy for us, our buildings and the environment.

Best Use of Technology: Refugee Text

With the population of refugees and asylum seekers reaching tens of millions, there is no denying that the need for food, healthcare and shelter has reached a critical level. Along with these basic fundamentals is the need for reliable and secure information that can provide refugees with such essential details as what country they are in, and where their families are. That’s where Refugee Text, a not-for-profit tech start-up, comes in.

Founded by Ciarárn Duffy, Caroline Arvidsson and Kåre M.S. Solvåg, the organization uses basic SMS data sharing to provide users with vital information, such as informing refugees of their basic rights, and enabling them to access services they need. Information is provided in English and Arabic (with plans to add Farsi and Dari) by a network of verified NGOs and other humanitarian groups. And information is updated regularly. Because SMS does not require a wifi signal, Refugee Text is available anywhere, regardless of data plans. Currently available in Germany, Denmark and Sweden, the service is slated to expand through Europe in the coming year.

Why we like it: Proof that today’s technology can provide humanitarian good and potentially save lives.

Best Security Product: Nimb Ring

If there was ever a year to launch a personal panic button, it was 2017. Presented by Los Altos startup Nimb, this fashion-forward wearable tech conceals a tiny alert trigger on the inside of a chunky bauble. Unlike a phone, the ring is always in hand and a call for help can be sent out silently and secretly. Just hold the button on the inside of the band for three seconds to alert pre-programmed contacts, such as friends, family, or the police, of your location via the app. Information such as where the wearer is going, who they are with, and what they are wearing, can all be logged in and a “follow me” feature can call for help if the wearer deviates from a pre-determined route.

Why we like it: Made to enhance personal safety and encourage a sense of security, the ring is a solution for so many at-risk situations, including online dating, nighttime runners, people with health issues or disabilities, even employees at small retail businesses who may be working alone.

Best Highrise Innovation: Multi

Anyone who lives or works in a skyscraper knows how much time is spent waiting for a lift. This year, the German elevator company Thyssenkrupp unveiled a remarkable solution for the waiting game: a rope-free elevator system that moves cabins vertically as well as horizontally. The network operates somewhat like rail line switching tracks in order to keep the system in continual motion. Called Multi, the cabins move along tracks that have “exchange systems” to allow for 90-degree turning. That means the cabin can switch from one direction to the another, continually moving along the tracks like a sliding puzzle. When an elevator cabin is needed it can zip along the fastest route, circumventing any congestion points.

Now, imagine what this up-and-down and side-to-side transportation network might mean for the shape of buildings. The scale and form of a tower would no longer be restricted by its footprint size. A few elevator shafts could service hundreds of riders swiftly and efficiently, and towers could be joined by elevator bridges in the sky. Thyssenkrupp estimates Multi has the potential to increase elevator travel capacity by upwards of 50 per cent, and reduce waiting time by as much as 60.

Why we like it: There is nothing like seeing a futuristic idea become reality. Thyssenkrupp first unveiled its sideways elevator back in 2014, but in July of this year, it reached a pivotal benchmark with a fully realized test version installed in a tower in Germany.

Best Architectural Intervention: The Krane by Arcgency

This year saw a plethora of smart architectural interventions located in unexpected places, including an office under a bridge, and three underground museums; one by BIG, the others by Snøhetta and Renzo Piano Building Workshop. In Copenhagen, local firm Arcgency added yet another remarkable space located inside a construction crane in the city’s harbourfront district.

Though cranes are a familiar fixture in redeveloping areas such as Nordhavn, this one predates the area’s revitalization and was once used to load coal onto ships, rather than to build towers. The industrial equipment has found new life with the addition of three spaces that host a spa, a 20-seat meeting room, and, in the uppermost reaches, a private retreat for two. Paying tribute to the structure’s “dark past,” Arcgency’s interiors pair the clean lines of classic Danish design with a monochromatic palette of soot black leather, stone, steel and wood.

Why we like it: The glass-walled meeting room offers panoramic views of the sea, sky and city that beg the question: why didn’t anyone think of this sooner?

Photo: Silk Therapeutics Facebook

Best Alternative to Plastic: Liquid Silk

In 1967’s The Graduate, young Benjamin Braddock is famously given the “one word” key to success: plastics. Today, he might be advised to go another route: silk. From clothing and beauty products to consumer packaging, the petrochemicals commonly used to stabilize or preserve what we wear, put on our bodies and store food and drink in are gradually being supplanted by the material generated by silkworms, especially in liquid form.

Photo: Silk Therapeutics Facebook

On the cutting edge of this phenomenon is the U.S. company Silk Therapeutics, which aims to replace the micro- and nano-plastics in many skin-care products, shampoos and deodorants with a “liquid silk” made with proteins extracted from discarded cocoons. Unlike petrochemicals, liquid silk doesn’t contribute to climate pollution when it’s created and won’t contaminate rivers and lakes when washed down drains. Because it’s a natural byproduct, it’s easier for the body to absorb. And unlike silk used for clothing, which is often made by boiling the cocoons to extract the fibre, liquid silk is sourced from discarded (lesser grade) casings, so the silkworm doesn’t die. One word: brilliant.

Why we like it: Major health and environmental benefits aside, liquid silk is one of those rare fossil fuel alternatives, like solar panels and wind power generators, with real commercial potential, especially if, as planned, it’s also used to make performance clothing, water bottles and can linings.

Best Way to Cool Down Cities: CoolSeal

The idea of geo-engineered cooling is nothing new. In fact, back in 2011, Gwynne Dyer (the Canadian journalist who wrote Climate Wars) had suggested that creating seawater clouds, filling the atmosphere with sulfur dioxide, and painting urban surfaces white could manipulate climate change. Six years on, one of those ideas has taken hold. CoolSeal is a water-based, asphalt emulsion coating that’s already having a dramatic effect in Los Angeles.

The “urban heat island effect” is a term used to describe cities that are warmer than their surrounding areas due to an over abundance of heat-concentrating building materials and a lack of vegetation. L.A. is one such city that has felt the impact of UHI and this year it took action by applying CoolSeal, a reflective grey coating, to selected streets in 14 of its 15 council districts.

It’s still a pilot project, but the results are already promising. According to The Washington Post, CoolSeal-coated parking lots are 5.5 degrees celsius cooler. Manufacturer Guardtop says the material boasts 33 per cent reflectivity, and, under the right conditions, the coating can swing temperatures by as much as 16 degrees.

Why we like it: A low-tech solution to a complex problem is always appealing. It also brings relief to vulnerable people who can’t afford air conditioning. At $7,000 for every 1.6km, the technology isn’t exactly cheap – but if it scales up properly, CoolSeal, or technologies like it, could be a simple solution for cities scorched by climate change.

Best Transportation Service: Mobility as a Service

Transportation is a fundamental social good, but building forward-thinking public transportation systems is complex – especially since cities are becoming an increasingly tangled network of public transit, bike shares, short-term car rentals and ride-sharing services. That’s where Mobility as a Service steps in.

Rightly hailed as “the Netflix of public transit,” MaaS is a public-private partnership that combines multiple modes of transport into a single service. Controlled through an app called Whim, which allows users to pre-pay for trips or subscribe for a monthly fee, MaaS allows travellers to plan trips based on their needs, using trains, buses, ride-sharing services or bike rentals. It’s remarkably flexible and user-friendly, which has driven early positive results. Helsinki, for instance, launched a MaaS pilot project in October, and saw a 25 per cent increase in mass transit usage.

Why we like it: It’s a completely different way to think about transit. The real goal is to encourage users to ditch private cars by making other (greener) options irresistible by being cheaper, more convenient, and more flexible. It’s prompted aggressive transportation goals in Helsinki, too: the Finnish city hopes to go car-free by 2025 and carbon neutral by 2050.

Best Device for Accessibility: The Dot Watch

Until the Dot Watch was released this year, timepieces for the blind involved crystals that could flip up, allowing the wearer to feel the hands. Fiddling with a watch’s hands, however, is a good way to damage the works. The Dot Watch, by contrast, uses a time-tested system – braille – to not only communicate hours and minutes, but also provide notifications.

Developed in Korea, Dot is powered by a rechargeable battery and boasts standard smartphone features, including a touch sensor, a vibration motor and Bluetooth. The innovations that makes it revolutionary are the four motorized modules, each with six possible dots, housed underneath a protective concave dial. Each of the dots can be raised or lowered individually, enabling the display of up to four braille characters (which the wearer reads as if they were printed on paper) at a time. And it’s as good-looking as it is innovative, featuring a big yet lightweight aluminum case and three leather straps of varying sizes.

Why we like it: The combination of technology and a tactile system long used by the blind make this timepiece a real breakthrough for the visually impaired.

Best Moment of Reckoning: Sophia, the first AI citizen

No other geek news story grabbed headlines quite like Sophia, the world’s first social humanoid robot to gain citizenship, in Saudi Arabia. Sophia is a bit like Lucy, the cloned sheep: she is the test case for all that can potentially go right – and terribly wrong – when humans try to imitate nature’s own.

The work of David Hanson of Hanson Robotics, Sophia represents the conundrum of our future existence, when machines develop the potential to overcome their inventors. Elon Musk, for one, has said AI is a “fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.” Stephen Hawkings has also described it as the “worst event in the history of our civilization,” unless society finds a way to control its development.

Those well-informed views test our understanding of what’s at stake when pursuing the outer reaches of technology. Interestingly, Sophia also brought to light more immediate realities, especially the fact that her Saudi citizenship would not have been possible if she were human. She announced her new citizenship to the media while not wearing a hijab, nor was she unaccompanied by a male guardian: two fundamentals that are forbidden for Saudi women, by law. Just where machines and humans are different took one giant step closer together.

Why we like it: Sophia may be the lighting rod needed to find clarity on how to think, use and regulate AI in the coming years, to ensure robotics make the the world a better place.